


a genin team with benefits

by teandfailure



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Awkward Sexual Situations, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Gambling, Multi, Polyamory, Romantic Comedy, maybe crack?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:50:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teandfailure/pseuds/teandfailure
Summary: they live in aninja village.nothing is ever really a secret anyway.





	a genin team with benefits

he wakes up late, the sunlight streaming in through the curtains so brightly that it’s almost disorienting. kakashi’s own bedroom is small but comfortable, a place he can retreat and recharge but rarely shares, the only thing he can count on to be the same at the end of each day; there’s not light like this in his house, warm and open-arms soft, almost like it wants to say hello. 

“shit,” he says to rin’s empty bedroom. 

her room is all open, white sheets and fluffy white pillows and a luxurious white down comforter in spite of the fact that kakashi has bled all over rin’s bed at least a dozen times, and he can’t be the only one. ( _medics,_ right?) the space has evolved over the years — the desk where she used to do schoolwork now collects books, used dishes, dirty clothes, the occasional spare loose kunai that will one day impale an unsuspecting foot after the inevitable landslide once the pile gets too tall, and her adorable childhood toy chest with flowers painted all up the sides now houses a host of weapons her civilian parents probably don’t know about.

kakashi’s brain is still trying to make gears turn through the molasses of twelve hours of sleep when he’s more used to six or four, but he’s still a shinobi, so waking up in strange or unexpected locales without totally understanding how he got there is a frustratingly normal experience in his life. he takes stock of his faculties and surroundings and finds rin’s apartment empty, all of his limbs intact if slightly stiff, and his head fuzzy but seemingly not hungover. 

when he sits up, he feels muscle shifting and twinging, finding new sore spots, which is- odd. it’s not like his body isn’t used to being run ragged. 

rin’s left him a note, carefully folded and labeled “kaka-chan” in sharpie, tucked into the feet (hands?) of strawberry, the stuffed turtle that always sits on her nightstand.

 

_my most ridiculous teammate,_

_i have the morning shift at the hospital, but you’re welcome to stay as long as you like, on the condition that if you’re still here when i get home i’m going to make you help with dinner._

_you’re going to find out eventually, so you might as well hear it (er, read it) from me: the events of last night may have put an end to a long-standing bet between myself and several other konoha shinobi. i promise no one means any harm by it, and we are merely irredeemable heathens who couldn’t resist the combination of two of the three great shinobi vices. i love you and obito as my own and if anyone gives you actual shit about it, i will slowly poison them and make it look like an accident._

_love always,  
rin _

_ps. drunk obito promised me he would wash my sheets, but at the time i am writing this, sober obito was nowhere to be seen, so if you see him, please threaten him with some kind of creative misuse of medical ninjutsu. i’m sure you can come up with something._

 

everything clicks into place all at once — shinobi vices, washing rin’s sheets, the new muscles he’s found and somehow made sore — like a key throwing all the tumblers in a lock. 

oh. _oh._

kakashi doesn’t waste any time after that. as tempting as it is to stay nestled comfortably in rin’s bed for the rest of the day, he’s got people to see, apparently, starting with his teammate who had the audacity to fuck him and then _run away_ like they’re still awkward children. 

after a moment’s pause, he steals one of rin’s t shirts to wear with yesterday’s uniform pants and his mask. then, he scoops up the rest of his and obito’s dirty laundry from where it’s strewn across the floor, bundles it all up in rin’s bed sheets, and drops the whole thing off at the laundromat on the corner. 

he gets a few strange looks from people on the street, although it’s hard to tell if they’re in response to his borrowed ‘konoha kunoichi’ t shirt or the evidence of his saturday night hedonism that he has slung over his shoulder, bundled up like a knapsack. 

they live in a _ninja village._ nothing is ever really a secret anyway. 

 

: :

 

he doesn’t find obito at the uchiha compound, which shouldn’t be surprising in the slightest. it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that there was a reason the two of them ended up in rin’s apartment the night before and not kakashi’s dad’s house or obito’s apartment nestled at the back of his clan’s compound. uchiha property is always full of prying eyes, even among the civilians.

(rin had moved out of her parents house about a year prior, with their blessing and what kakashi suspects was quiet gratitude: they love rin, of course, but civilian parents never totally acclimated to the blood and the long hours and the sharp objects that come with being a shinobi. in his experience, they were more supportive when they didn’t have to have the realities rubbed into their face.)

kakashi does, however, run into gai outside the gates to the uchiha compound, during what appears to be a break from running laps to do a few sets of one-handed push-ups. sometimes his life is just too easy.

gai’s eyes nearly bug out of his head when he sees kakashi, and the color drains from his face in a way that’s almost comical. he bounces upright and onto his feet as if something had bit him. “ah, kakashi,” he says, and his voice wobbles like it’s walking on stilts. “what a pleasant surprise to run into you on this side of the village at such an invigorating hour.” 

“gaiiiiiiiiiiiii,” he singsongs. “i’d been hoping to run into you, actually.” 

“for training?” gai responds, too loud even for him. “i was just in the middle of a set, but i’d be happy to start again with you. never such a thing as too much training!”

“i’m actually kind of in a hurry,” he replies. “but i wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

gai gulps audibly and flashes him a smile that’s all teeth. “talk? there’s no use wasting our time gabbing when we could be using those minutes for valuable taijutsu practice, you know! i think your form has been slipping lately, you know getting older can really-” 

“... we’re twenty, gai. i don’t exactly have my foot in the grave yet.” it’s so hard to stay on topic with gai; if kakashi weren’t steering the conversation, they could easily kill an entire day getting lost in his tangents and excuses. “it’s nearly noon, yet you seem surprised to see me out and about,” he continues. “furthermore, why are you so shocked to find me at the uchiha compound? obito is my teammate, which you know, and i’ve run into you training in this area many times before when i’ve had to call on him or someone else in his clan.” 

“well you see, i was- i suppose i simply wasn’t thinking-”

if kakashi was meaner, he’d let gai waffle back and forth with increasingly complicated explanations for another couple of minutes: it’s hilarious, for one thing, and honestly it would probably serve him well as a shinobi if gai were a little bit better at lying. kakashi has another idiot jounin to hunt down, though, so he coughs loud enough to interrupt gai’s floundering and says “it’s almost as if you knew i was out late last night, and that obito rather intentionally did not return to the uchiha compound.” pause. “almost as certain as if you’d bet on it.” 

“okay, okay!” he holds up his hands in surrender. his eyes, predictably, are starting to brim with tears. “i will admit, i was in on it, but i promise you i was not the mastermind! i was under duress, or at least under the influence, and that rin has a _wicked_ tongue-”

“... yeah, i guess you could call it that,” kakashi concedes around laugh, biting back a snarky remark about how he would really know better than gai all of the things rin is capable of doing with her tongue. “did you win?” 

“hmm?”

“the bet,” he repeats. “did you win? how many ryo is it?”

gai pales again. “i regret to inform you, my dear rival,” deep breath, a pose to brace himself, “that not only have i betrayed you for cheap monetary gain, but i didn’t even win, so now it’s more like i’ve betrayed you for non-trivial monetary losses.” the crying has started to intensify, and there’s an unfortunate amount of snot coming out of his nose.

“‘betrayal’ seems like a strong word to use here,” he offers, patting gai’s shoulder in a weak attempt to defuse the situation. 

“i bet that you would consummate your burning desires in april.” gai continues as if kakashi hadn’t said anything. “i had imagined a blossoming romance, in that grove of cherry trees just outside the back gate of the uchiha compound, tender and sweet and blush pink, your love blooming at the same time as the trees!”

kakashi thinks back on the night before — obito half-yelling “you are _infuriating_ sometimes,” in front of a bar full of people, kakashi taking another step forward, too close, before he’d said “are you angry at me or the fact that you’re still attracted to me?” and stared at obito’s mouth until he finally took a fucking hint and dragged him away with an insistent hand on his wrist. it’s not exactly the paragon of emotional support and dramatic confessions that gai always seems to imagine, no matter who the couple in question is. “neither of us is what i would call a romantic,” he settles on, diplomatic. “also, it’s july.”

gai chokes on another sob. “i know! i never said i was _good_ at gambling, okay, i was coerced by your teammate and her penchant for corporeal vice.” 

“you really don’t have to apologize,” kakashi says, breezing right on by ‘corporeal vice’ and all of the innuendos gai probably doesn’t even realize he’s setting up. “really, i swear. i can’t speak for obito, but i for one would have used a bit more strategy if i was trying to keep my sex life a secret.” 

one of gai’s eyebrow goes way up, under his bangs. “you haven’t spoken to your sweetheart about it?”

kakashi had blessedly never had the sensory experience of throwing up _inside_ the mask, but sometimes it seems like the people in his life are really bent on making that happen. that, or gai has finally come around to the realization that if he can piss kakashi off enough, he’ll relent to training together for the cathartic experience of trying to beat the shit out of him, which honestly might be more effective than some of gai’s other tactics. “okay, ‘sweetheart’ is _definitely_ too strong of a word to use here,” he corrects. “and i haven’t talked to him because i can’t find him, which is why i need to _go.”_

“lovedove? dearheart? what terms do you and your dear comrade use to quantify your unparalleled affection and unity?”

“‘fuckbuddy’ if he’s lucky,” he says, “but usually i just call him by his name.” he feels a bead of sweat roll down his face before it makes contact with the mask. “i have some other errands to run, gai- other, unrelated errands happening very far away that you can’t help me with. uhm. sorry about the bet, i’ll see you later!” 

not for the first time in his life, and undoubtedly not the last, kakashi shunshins away before gai can get another comment in edgewise. 

 

: :

 

obito isn’t exactly known for his subtlety, but he’s smart enough to mask his chakra, at least enough that kakashi won’t be able to find him unless they’re in close proximity to one another. kakashi’s not a sensor type — he has ninken for that — but his ninken are _traitors_ and will laugh at him until approximately the end of time when they find out he hooked up with someone and then lost them so badly he needed canine assistance to find them again. obito can’t have gone far; he’s supposed to be sent out on a mission the next day, so he has to be in konoha _somewhere._

from the uchiha compound, kakashi heads to the training grounds, but there’s so damn _many_ of them it’s hard to feel like he’s even accomplishing, shunshinning to each training ground only long enough to scan for obito’s chakra before he’s on to the next one. after awhile, he loses patience — too many genin teams at the training grounds, not enough of the people who could actually help him — so he moves on to other places in the village, the memorial stone and all the shrines and the tea house obito likes, but he still can’t seem to find any leads. deflated, he detours back to rin’s apartment to pick up the laundry and hang everything out to dry, then swings back around the produce market to see if anyone has seen obito there. 

they haven’t, of course, but he does find rin at the market, thoughtfully comparing two mangoes at the corner fruit stall. “hey,” she says, then wordlessly hands him both the mangoes, one in each hand. 

after a moment, kakashi gives each mango a squeeze, and then a sniff. he hands one back to her and places the other amongst its kin in the basket. 

“i can’t find obito,” he confesses without preamble. honestly, it’s lucky he ran into rin here; by this point in the afternoon he’s sweaty and frustrated, low-level panic boiling underneath his skin even though he tries to hide it, and rin is the most effective ‘calm down’ button he’s ever had. “it’s a _hidden village,_ why is it so biiiiiiig?” 

rin has moved on to skeptically eyeing a truly enormous basket of oranges. “obito is an excellent shinobi,” she starts, “but in my experience as his comrade, hiding isn’t really his area of expertise.” she turns an orange over in her hand, inspecting. “remember that time we were ambushed by, like, fifteen kiri nin, and he panicked and tried to hide behind a bush, only it was winter and the bush was barren and you could totally still see him, then you took out like all of the kiri nin in one giant marathon chidori while i yelled at him for not _looking_ with his _eyes_ before he tries to hide somewhere?” 

“...are you trying to make me feel worse?”

rin giggles a little. “i’m just _saying_ you might be overthinking this a little bit.” the orange plunks into her basket.

“i’ve been _everywhere,”_ he whines. if they were home, he’d throw himself on the couch like a swooning victorian maiden. “his apartment, the memorial, that place with that expensive tea he never shuts up about, about as many of the training grounds i could shunshin into before a jounin sensei came after me for interrupting their team’s training.” he heaves a dramatic sigh. “why does he want to make it weirdddddd?”

“obito is always weird,” rin counters. “not all of us can have the innate nohara talent for keeping things casual even when it’s not helpful and sometimes even when it’s wildly inappropriate.”

kakashi blinks. “but i love that about you.” 

rin laughs, her real laugh that’s half a wind chime and half nails on a chalkboard and yet somehow still one of his favorite sounds in the world. “you could check sensei’s house?” she offers. “safe harbors and all that.”

 

kakashi blinks again. “you always were the smartest,” he says, and eye smiles at her while he quickly snatches another orange and drops it in her basket. “stay safe, talk soon!” he says quickly, then shunshins away before rin can get mad. 

 

: :

 

“rin’s not going to let us have sex in her bed again if you don’t wash her sheets.”

obito _squawks._ the kunai he’d been practicing with clatter to the ground. 

from behind them, sensei’s voice says “no homicide in the yard,” unamused, like he’s not surprised _at all_ by any of this. kakashi looks just in time to see minato turn on his heel and walk back towards the house without another glance behind him.

...as far as entrances go, this might not be kakashi’s best performance. sensei will forgive him; he’s forgiven him much worse. 

obito is brutalizing the lone tree in their sensei’s backyard. there’s a collection of errant, shallow marks on the lower part of the tree trunk from where naruto has used it for his own training, and then higher up, a more precise concentration of kunai-sized cuts in the bark from obito and kakashi using target practice as stress relief.

“i was going to come find you,” obito mumbles, and looks small, younger in his shyness. “you didn’t have to traumatize sensei. he doesn’t want to know we’re having sex, he’s like our dad.”

“he’ll survive,” he volleys back, because it seems more tactful than ‘the bastard already knew, and i want to be mad at him for it but mostly i’m just mad at myself.’ “you wanna tell me what’s going on here?” 

obito’s shoulders go up, like the hackles on a cat. “i was trying to rehearse what i was going to say,” he says mournfully, “but naruto needed help with his homework, and he was so sweet, he was calling me obi-niisan, how could i have said no? but one problem turned into a whole page, and then had science to work on too, and i-”

“obito. focus.” 

there’s a blush climbing up his cheeks. “last night was- fine. er. better than fine, at least for me. significantly above ‘fine.’” 

“yeah?” 

“it’s not- i just don’t want you to think i ran away because you were an awful fuck, okay? sorry for trying to protect your fragile masculinity,” obito snarks. maybe kakashi should be hurt by that, but mostly he’s marvelling at the tenacity of it. “it was just- this morning, i woke up before you, and i started thinking? about everything?” 

“always a dangerous pastime,” kakashi agrees, and obito steps closer to thwack him on the arm, but he’s fighting back a grin in spite of himself. 

“what ever happened with you and rin?” obito asks, quieter, like he’s afraid he shouldn’t have said it. 

kakashi gives him a look. “i’m pretty sure they went over this part in the academy.” 

obito’s gone from ‘blushing’ to ‘human incarnation of a tomato’ and it’s kakashi’s favorite thing ever. “not _that,_ jesus,” he mumbles. “but like- are you guys _together_ now?” 

“we’re not monogamous,” he says, half an answer. “she’s my best friend; she always has been. now, she’s just my best friend who sometimes lets me take her shirt off.” he pauses. “you know _you’re_ my best friend too.” 

obito either hasn’t heard him or is going to pretend he didn’t. “so she’s okay with” — hand flailing — “you and me.”

kakashi snorts. “she had half the village betting on when we would finally hook up, she damn well better be okay with it.” 

obito blinks, owlish behind the traditional uchiha high collar. “that… really wasn’t what i was expecting you to say, holy shit. wow. i’m impressed but also slightly terrified.” he shoves his hands into his pockets, then pulls them out again. “what do you know?” 

“about the bet? not a lot, sadly, other than that rin was the ringleader and gai, unsurprisingly, lost by a huge, possibly unparalleled margin.” pause, gears turning. “wait, what does rin have to do with this morning?” 

“er.” obito’s eyes dart around sensei’s yard, hoping for rescue or at least distraction. “nothing. nothing at all! just- i was curious-” 

kakashi would leave obito to floundering for at least another thirty seconds, but fate spares him this time around as kushina pokes a head out the back door. “you’re staying for dinner,” she says, in a tone that books no questions. “and dinner is in ten minutes, so you might want to come inside and wash up first.”

(rescue, kakashi thinks, might be too kind of a term for it.) 

kakashi gets as far as “well actually”- before kushina hits him with a _look,_ the type that would kill or at least seriously incapacitate a lesser ninja. he swallows once, then again, for good measure. “i’ll set the table?” kakashi offers instead. come to think of it, he hasn’t eaten a real meal yet today; kushina might be onto something. 

her smile opens up like a sunflower. he can see where rin gets it from.

 

: :

 

dinner with sensei’s family is comfortable and safe, the way it always is. kushina only seems to know how to cook in army-sized portions — “we have big families, back in whirlpool,” she says offhand, scooping a truly enormous amount of vegetables onto kakashi’s plate — and even though they’d been roped into staying for dinner mostly by force, it almost feels like they’re all one big, dysfunctional family: kushina and minato the adorable if slightly eccentric parents, kushina the disciplinarian while minato plays the kind, wise father; naruto the glowing perfect son, gushing about his day at the academy around a mouthful of rice; and kakashi and obito flanking either end of the table, the ne’er-do-well older kids (from minato’s ill-fated second marriage to his career) who get in trouble for swearing at the table and always try to sneak extra dango when no one else is looking. 

obito is still the most awkward human being alive though. any time someone says his name, he jumps like seven feet in the air, and his eyes seem to be stuck open too wide, so he always looks just this side of panicked. kushina asks him a banal question about some distant uchiha relative and he startles so badly he knocks over a glass of water; kakashi gives his shin a swift kick under the table and tries to convey ‘you’re making everything more suspicious with all these theatrics’ in a look, but with the mask, he only has so much face to work with, and clearly he’s coming up short because obito’s face contorts in obvious confusion. 

minato notices the exchange and returns a look of his own. it reminds kakashi of their first mission to the suna, where they’d spent three days trekking across the desert with kakashi trying to scare obito so badly it would awaken his sharingan and obito alternating between screaming and attempting to set all the sand around them on fire. 

kakashi slinks further down into his chair. it had been a bad talk, that time in suna. 

he’s so eager for escape that he volunteers to do the dishes — definitely a red flag, judging from the way kushina raises her eyebrows at him — so he’s in the kitchen when he hears the front door clatter open. there’s china clanking in the dining room; sensei must have made tea. 

naruto yells “niichan!”, and rin must catch him when he jumps at her; naruto’s not exactly quiet when he’s not getting what he wants. the kid is about four years too old to be jumping and expecting to be caught, but none of them can begrudge him the innocence of it, that he just _trusts._ it won’t last, but none of them want to be the one to take it from him. 

“a little warning next time, naruto,” rin tries to scold, but she’s laughing too hard for him to take her seriously.

minato seems to have been expecting her. “you’re not exactly going to get warning in the field,” he counters, his tone still light. he slurps his tea. 

“how many times have you been hug-ambushed in the field, sensei?”

“fifteen? twenty?”

when kakashi pokes his head around the corner, kushina is about five seconds from being overcome by giggles, grinning from ear to ear. “all of them were me,” she confesses in a stage whisper.

obito is just watching, his eyes like golf balls rolling back and forth as he looks from rin to sensei to kushina and back again. he’s holding a cup of tea in his hands like he doesn’t understand what it’s for. when rin turns to him, realization dawns on his face. “rin, i never- last night, i promised-”

minato leans over to cover naruto’s ears with his hands. “hey, a little less ‘last night’ with the kid around, please.” kakashi would swear that sensei is blushing, color creeping high on high almost the color of kushina’s hair. it makes his eyes look almost incandescent. 

“at _the bar_ last night,” obito amends. he’s blushing too, a soft pink that’s almost delicate against his pale skin. “before” — two handed flailing, as if he’s going to he able to conjure up an appropriate phrase out of thin air — “before… what sensei is alluding to.”

minato hisses “the bar isn’t _better,”_ at the same time kushina says “you can say the word ‘sex,’ you know,” and minato has gone so crimson kakashi thinks for a second he’s going to snap at obito that he really _isn’t_ allowed to say the word sex, that they’re his _students_ and minato is staring down middle age but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to admit that his students are fully-fledged adults, even if they are all jounin.

when the silence has started to simmer uncomfortably, minato says “i’m going to put naruto to bed,” and scoops up his kid even though — it bears repeating — naruto is _six_ and very capable of walking. his tea sits abandoned on the table. 

kushina seems to be having entirely too much fun with all of this. “he means well,” she says, as if they don’t all know that already. “he’s already had to grapple with the fact that his precious genin are fully-grown shinobi threatening to eclipse him in skill in the relatively near future” — everyone turns to kakashi, who dutifully stares at the ceiling and twiddles his thumbs — “but he kind of forgets about… the human side of things, sometimes. growing up doesn’t just mean rising through the ranks.”

obito looks like he wants to cry. “you realize i’m staying away from the uchiha compound on purpose, right? so that my family isn’t breathing down my neck about my sex life? you know, because it’s _no one else’s business?”_

kushina just laughs into her tea and says, “you forgot about your other family, kid. it’s a lot harder to keep secrets from us.”

 

: :

 

rin leads their escape from sensei’s house, because she is blessed and holy and better with people than obito and kakashi combined. minato stays hidden — “he’s embarrassed,” kushina says easily, and then “he doesn’t realize he feels like he’s your dad, and i don’t know how to tell him” — but they promise to all come by the next day for brunch, and in return kushina promises to talk minato down from any sex-talk-related cliffs he may find himself on in his crisis of aging and/or fatherhood, and just like that they’re back on the streets of konoha and kakashi feels like someone just lifted two bricks off either side of his chest.

the sun has just about set, but bits of creamsicle twilight still cling to the horizon, and summer in konoha is warm even after dark. they get about a block away from sensei’s house before rin says, casual, “so about my sheets.”

“rin, i am _so sorry,”_ obito starts. “i promised, i know i did, but things kind of got away from me today, and i know that’s not an excuse-”

“i did it for you.” the words tumble out of kakashi’s mouth, like they were coming whether he liked it or not. “the laundry, i mean. rin left me a note; i fit it in between all my searching-for-obito-who-stood-me-up errands.”

obito’s eyes narrow. “you? did something nice for me? am i dreaming? please tell me all of today has been one huge, improbably-detailed nightmare.”

“you don’t get to say i never do anything nice for you when your dick has been in my mouth.” kakashi sticks the landing with that one, and rin laughs way too hard. “also, i would argue that i mostly did something nice for _rin,_ it just so happens that that nice thing also benefited you.”

“you’re both terrible and you deserve each other,” rin says, but she’s still half-laughing. “did you talk about your feelings?”

“i was _trying,”_ kakashi grumbles. if they weren’t walking, he’d woefully throw his head onto rin’s shoulder. _“someone_ is holding out on me, though.” 

two pairs of expectant eyes turn to obito, and he folds like a house of cards. he’s got his hands up, as if he can physically cushion the impact of what he’s about to say. _“okay,_ okay, but in my defense, i had no idea i wanted to be polyamorous before this morning, let alone that i was at least fractionally in love with both of my teammates of the past ten fucking years, and that was a lot to process before tea, so i just. didn’t.” 

kakashi and rin both stop walking. the street around them is empty, fortunately, so at least they don’t cause some kind of shinobi pile-up by stopping short. 

“... it’s a lot to process after tea, too, to be fair,” kakashi says.

“i was trying to tactful! i really was! but i was kind of overwhelmed at first, and i wanted it to be- nice, or something, when i talked to you guys. not like this, where you both just stare at me with blank expressions because you’re trying to hide your pity, or whatever.” 

“this isn’t pity,” kakashi says. his brain is practically buzzing, a thousand questions bouncing around his head, some running in parallel while other lines are intersecting. christ, the three of them could probably run konoha single-handedly, if some kind of masochistic desire to do so ever struck them: kakashi’s ninjutsu and genetic inability to give a shit about village drama, rin’s quick wit and magical healing hands, obito’s family connections and genjutsu that can keep a full platoon lost in spiralling hallucinations for the better part of a week. 

more importantly, the three of them could have some truly _spectacular_ sex. 

“obito, this might be the best idea you’ve ever had.” 

his eyes are the size of dinner plates. “...yeah?”

“i mean, i’m a little hurt that you would think that that was a pity fuck,” kakashi continues, shoves his hands in his pockets just for want of something to do. “i wasn’t _that_ drunk, and neither were you. i wouldn’t have done it if i didn’t mean it.” _you’re more important to me than that,_ he almost says. 

there’s something tugging in his chest, something cloying and sentimental and syrupy sweet, like if he just let it happen this could escalate into something out of one of those trashy romance novels obito reads that he thinks no one else knows about. kakashi loves rin — has loved her for what feels like a lifetime, years before he’d ever touched her or let her touch back — and it was as inescapable as it was easy, like breathing, like watching the tide go out and feeling absolutely certain that tomorrow it would come back in again. nothing with obito had ever been that easy, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent all of this time loving obito, too; he’d just never… noticed it before. 

“i’m an idiot,” kakashi says blankly, apropos of nothing. 

“you wanna share with the class?” rin asks.

“i’m just as bad as he is,” he whines. suddenly everything feels different, like there’s a new filter over the lens, like someone has finally turned the kaleidoscope the right way and everything from the past decade is finally falling into place as it was intended to. “i’ve been in love with this moron _this whole time_ and i didn’t even fucking realize it.” 

“...the whole time?” obito repeats numbly. 

rin sighs like she learned it from sensei, like she can put the entire weight of the known universe into one long, heavy exhale. “i thought you _knew.”_

“... wait, the _whole time?_ like, since-we-were-ten the whole time? since you hit puberty? since that mission to the hidden grass village where we almost- in the pond, that night- but then sensei showed up and we got spooked and never talked about it? i feel like you can’t just drop that and expect me not to have follow-up questions, kakashi, come _on.”_

“... definitely by the time we did the mission in grass village,” he answers. it takes a moment, because he hadn’t realized that was true until he said it. “i don’t know, exactly; it kind of snuck up on me.”

rin’s gaze is bouncing between the two of them, half weary and half laughing. “you’re literally in the middle of confessing your love for someone and neither of you can find a single romantic bone in your body.” she’s trying to chastise them, but the smile belies her true feelings. “i’m giving up; you’re officially hopeless.”

“you’re as bad as gai,” kakashi scoffs. “we’re not going to magically become different people just because _someone_ got his dick sucked last night.” 

“hey! two someones!” there’s an adorable blush climbing up obito’s cheeks again, peeking out from behind his collar. “don’t be giving rin the wrong idea!”

obito turns to face her with energy like he’s been shocked. “rin!” he yelps, “oh my god, _rin.”_ his eyes go wide again, and kakashi barely suppresses a groan, because what _else_ could he have forgotten about and then dramatically remembered at an inopportune moment? they have to be running out of secrets. “i didn’t even- god, you probably don’t even _like_ me, and i just- with kakashi, i was so surprised i didn’t even think-” 

“obito, oh my god, don’t take this the wrong way, but sometimes you are _so good_ at missing the things that are right in front of your face.” the air between them is heavy, foreshadowing, thick and sparking with potential like chakra gathering the air the moment before sensei’s rasengan comes together. “as i was trying to say, you’re both lucky i was already smitten before you got tangled up in masculinity contest blowjobs or whatever you’re calling” — she waves a hand broadly at the two of them — “all of this.” 

“a genin team with benefits?” kakashi offers. 

“we’re not genin,” obito volleys back. “immediate disqualification.” he does a double take, right there in the middle of the mostly-empty street. “wait, did you just say _smitten?”_

“it means she _likes_ you,” kakashi offers, grinning hard behind the mask. 

“i’d throttle you if i didn’t think that shit got you off,” obito spits in retort. they’ve gotten pretty good at talking shit these past few years; most of the real venom between them had faded once they’d reached the end of puberty and the testosterone calmed down, and what remained in its place was a kind of comfortable companionship best expressed through insults and/or profanity. 

“obito.” rin says his name like it tastes good, like it lingers and sticks to the inside of her mouth like a caramel. “focus. look at me.”

“rin,” obito says again, but his voice is different this time, steady and deep in his chest.

she steps forward into his space and touches him, so slowly as if to ask permission, places her palm flat against his chest and just lets it rest there. “obito, can i kiss you?”

“oh my god, _please.”_

kakashi can feel his own pulse thundering in his ears, which is surprising even if maybe it shouldn’t be. it’s a little bit like he’s having an out of body experience, standing stock still while the scene plays out in front of him in slow motion as if he’s drunk: rin’s other hand cupping obito’s jaw, guiding him so subtly he probably hasn’t even noticed; the steady, anchoring way that she presses against your chest when she kisses you, like she’s trying to make sure you don’t float away; rin kissing him slowly, like it’s an indulgence, like it’s an art with which she’s comfortable taking her time. obito makes a soft noise against her mouth and she pulls him in closer, warm and sweet and skin on skin that still tingles even when rin’s hands are in platonic places. 

kakashi is so close he can practically smell her shampoo — can smell obito, too, his deodorant and his laundry soap — and he’s not jealous, even though a younger version of himself would be. 

rin is giggly like champagne bubbles when she finally lets go of him. “you have no idea how long i’ve been waiting to do that.” 

“you realize you have to share him, right?” kakashi says. 

this time, rin’s smile has a sharp edge to it, wolfish, and her eyes are dark and full of promise. “i’ll have you know i am _great_ at sharing.”

obito doesn’t say anything for a moment, but kakashi watches him shiver under her gaze. “we should go back to your place,” he says, faux casual, nodding towards rin. “kakashi and i need to make your bed.”

“preferably again and again, all night, in a variety of angles and positions-”

“oh my god we are _in public,”_ rin hisses. “there’s a difference between ‘everybody knows’ and ‘everybody knows because they heard you doing a rendition of icha icha far too loudly in front of yamanaka flowers,’ and i am okay with only one of these options, kakashi.” 

“so let’s be less in public.” he steps forward, close enough that he could touch, and slow enough that either of them could reach out and stop him if they wanted, forms the hand signs to shunshin back to rin’s apartment. 

nobody tries to stop him.

 

: :

 

morning comes to him too early and too loud, rin’s voice and the clanking of dishware, open blinds that glint right into his eyes when he peeks up over the blanket. the sun is trying to slowly cook him under rin’s duvet. 

when kakashi’s blinked all of the stars out of his eyes, he finds rin and obito sitting cross-legged on either side of the bed — and either side of him — talking quietly and drinking tea, resting their cups on the small of kakashi’s back. there’s a tea set perched atop a pile of books on rin’s desk. 

“are you using me as a table?” he mumbles, half into a pillow.

“a little,” obito says. he doesn’t sound very sorry about it. “we figured if we just let you sleep, we would miss brunch, and then kushina would storm over here with intent to kill and/or concern that we had all died during the night in some kind of freak sex accident, and then she’d break into rin’s apartment and see you without your mask on and the whole world as we know it would end.” 

“rude,” kakashi accuses. “as if i would miss _food._ let me sit up?” 

obito moves, even if he has to grumble about it, and kakashi is hit with a wave of aching, deep-seated tiredness as soon as he starts to sit up. today, though, exhaustion feels strangely good on him; his relationship with his body has always been primarily functional, and while it wasn’t to say that he didn’t _enjoy_ training, per se, it was a very different kind of joy to have mastered a new jutsu than it was to _finally_ get to touch someone after years of sexual tension so thick he’d been surprised obito couldn’t see it with his fucking sharingan. 

it was… nice, so far.

“we can probably head over to sensei’s house whenever,” rin says. “kushina didn’t say, but every time i ask her what time we’re supposed to come over, she gives me a speech about how we’re always welcome there and i should really come visit more often and then she never actually says a time.” 

“at least that means we can’t be late?” obito offers.

he’s _ridiculous,_ and kakashi loves him way too much for his own good, but apparently they’re leaning into that one these days. 

rin corrals them both out of the bed and into her shower with the patience of someone who endured one too many herding missions as a genin, and they don’t all three fit in her shower — at least not without some serious contortion and/or creative wiggling — so they do shifts, obito and rin first, while kakashi sits on the bathroom counter whistling over the sounds of them making out, then kakashi and rin, having sent obito to raid rin’s closet. (rin was entitled to the double shower, it was decided, because her hair was approximately twice as long as theirs.) 

the sun rises early this time of year, so it’s already hot outside by the time everyone is dressed, humidity that sticks to your skin even at unholy hours of the morning. sensei doesn’t live far, in spite of how long the walk home had seemed last night, but stepping into the shade dark of their living room is a relief all the same. 

kushina greets them with a level of dramatism more appropriate for friends she hasn’t seen since the war than friends she saw approximately twelve hours ago. she’s placing a basket of some kind of pastries at the center of the table — they smell fruity, kakashi thinks, heavy and rich like cherries — minato flanking one side of the table with a stack of papers so tall that only his hair is visible when looking at him head on. there’s a pot of tea sitting on a warmer on the other side of the table, and a big container of rice resting on what appears to be a pile of papers from naruto’s academy teachers. in the corner of his eye, kakashi catches a flash of orange and yellow, naruto running and jumping around in the backyard with an enthusiasm even gai would surely envy.

“it’s kind of a loose interpretation of the concept of brunch,” kushina offers around a laugh. she’s got something else cooking on the stove - eggs, maybe, with vegetables of some kind. “i asked naruto to join us, but he told me ninja don’t eat brunch, in spite of how obviously untrue that is if he’d think about it for a few more seconds.”

“we’re doing working brunch?” minato suggests. he’s leafing through a stack of papers, as quick as if he were dealing cards, plucking sheets out at random and sorting them into smaller piles. 

“is it still a working brunch if you’re the only one working?” kakashi asks.

minato is smiling like he’s up to something. “that sounds to me like an elite jounin of our village volunteering to help me approve almost a literal thousand mindlessly simple genin missions.” he picks up a chunk of papers off the top of one of the piles, parcels them out to kakashi and obito and rin with entirely too much glee in his eyes. 

“...i walked right into that, didn’t i?”

“don’t worry, you all did,” he says cheerfully. 

rin plucks the first one off her stack. “since when is ‘cat stuck in a tree’ a ninja mission? what ever happened to superfluous escort missions to war-torn countries in the name of diplomacy?”

“it’s gonna take you a long time to get through your pile with an attitude like that,” kakashi says. he doesn’t exactly love doing sensei’s grunt work, but if it’s going to happen regardless, he might as well have some fun giving rin shit for it. “if i find any escort missions, i’ll be sure to pass them on to you. ” 

rin reaches petulantly for a pastry. 

obito is fidgeting, picking at the crust on one of the pastries but making no move to actually eat it. “i’m sorry about yesterday, sensei,” he says to the pastry. “it was never my intention to make anyone uncomfortable or to say anything untoward in front of your family; i know that things are a little bit- unorthodox, with the three of us-”

minato echoes “the three of you?” in dizzy voice, and behind them, quieter, kushina sing songs “i told youuuuu,” without so much as turning away from the stove. 

sensei shakes his head to clear it, like he can’t be getting bogged down with distractions now even if they keep throwing curveballs; he’s making that face like he rehearsed this. “when you all were first assigned to me as genin, i don’t think i could have possibly imagined that our relationships would develop into what they are now, and that evolution is natural even if it does catch me off guard sometimes,” he says. “what i’m trying to say is i’m not so old that i don’t remember what it’s like to be young. and i would never want you to feel like you didn’t have my support or my blessing.” 

kushina pats obito on the head, turns off the stove. “you have to remember we’re basically family with jiraiya, among other things,” she says. “we’ve seen a lot of unconventional things before.”

“it’s honestly remarkable i turned out as boring as i did,” minato says morosely, “considering all those formative years spent doing katas outside of the great bath houses and hot springs of all five elemental nations.”

“you’d think you’d be a little bit more comfortable with sex by now,” kushina teases. 

“aren’t you supposed to be _happy_ that i’m not a dirty old man? privately, i’ve always thought sensei was a touch disappointed about it, but i feel like it would cause problems, both in the village and in terms of our personal relationship, if i kept up some of his, er, hobbies-” 

“we don’t really have to speculate about that,” obito says quickly. “really, sensei, even if kushina-san isn’t grateful that you’re not a pervert, i can assure you that i am- i’m pretty sure i speak on behalf of my entire clan, actually, although if you want it official i have to take it to the elders- there’s some paperwork involved-”

“you’re not an old man yet,” kakashi offers. “there’s still time.”

kushina places another dish on the table, something with eggs and peppers and cheese that smells _heavenly._ kakashi helps himself to some of that. the table is precariously crowded; everything is an elbow away from being shattered or ruined with tea or kakashi losing an eye to an unfortunately positioned chopstick, but it feels homey, all of them sharing space and pencils and plates. 

it’s quiet for a moment, just the scratching of pens on paper and the occasional clink of chopsticks on ceramic. softly, rin says, “do you know if jiraiya-sama is in the village right now, sensei?”

“... he was going to spend some time in kumo, last i heard,” sensei says, his eyebrows up to his hairline. “who wants to know?”

rin is looking intently at the stack of papers in her hands, but she’s all nervous energy, shoulders practically up to her ears and her grip so tight her knuckles have gone white. “i might owehimmoneyfromthebet.”

kakashi doesn’t yell, per se, but his voice seems to rip itself out of his chest a bit more than is desirable. “you let _jiraiya_ win the bet?!”

“i didn’t _let_ anyone do anything!” rin squeaks. “it got out of hand, okay, there were- substances involved, and before i knew it there was this huge roster of names and a big wad of cash in an envelope and i didn’t exactly know who all had signed up or what dates they picked until it was too late.” 

“you couldn’t just like, rig it so you would win?” obito laments. “wouldn’t that have been easier? at least then i would feel happy for you that you won; knowing it was jiraiya just makes it feel so much… dirtier.” 

“i’m just going to pretend i can’t hear you,” minato announces, to the concern of approximately no one in the room. his pen scritches as he signs off on another genin mission; he and rin seem to be the only ones signing with any kind of urgency. 

“if you had been kind enough to give me a little bit more warning about the forthcoming fucking, i could probably have swung that,” rin continues, “but texting me that you’re using my apartment exactly zero seconds before you shunshin _into_ my apartment and commence using it wasn’t really a lot of notice.” 

“it wasn’t like we were going to go back to my _dad’s house.”_

“or the compound!” obito shivers. “way too many sharingans in a one kilometer radius.” 

seemingly despite himself, that gets a laugh out of sensei. “i love that you think your father doesn’t know exactly where you are and what you’re up to when you don’t come home.”

“...thought you couldn’t hear us, dear,” kushina says, but her eyes are sparkling, too, like soda about to fizz over. 

under the table, kakashi bumps his knee against rin’s; she doesn’t look up from her stack of paperwork, but she smiles, though, small and just to herself. somehow, it feels like even more of an accomplishment that way. 

on his other side, obito kicks him in the shin. “don’t leave me out, asshole,” he says, but he’s struggling to sound mad with that stupid (adorable) smile plastered on his face. 

kakashi says “i would never,” and is a little startled to realize that he means it. it feels good on him, like the sun on his back.

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter](https://twitter.com/teandfailure)


End file.
